


Dinner Party

by flashforeward



Category: Power Rangers (2017)
Genre: Character Study, Future Fic, M/M, character study: zack, our boys are cohabitating
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-11
Updated: 2017-04-11
Packaged: 2018-10-17 11:50:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 844
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10593429
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/flashforeward/pseuds/flashforeward
Summary: Zack finally explained his relationship with Billy and Jason to his mom and now she wants to come over for dinner and Zack wants everything to be perfect.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Another fic for my [Gen Prompt Bingo card](https://evilinsanemonkey.dreamwidth.org/636469.html), the prompt for this one was kitchen junk drawer.

Zack is cooking because Zack wants every single thing to be perfect because the entire point of this dinner is he has to introduce Jason and Billy to his mom as his boyfriends - he can explain that that word doesn't quite fit them as much as he likes, she still insists on using it and Zack's given up trying to find a term that fits that she'll understand - so he feels like it's responsibility to make sure everything runs smoothly. He knows this is going to be beyond awkward, even with Trini and Kimberly, Jason's family, and Billy's mom there to help keep things balanced, and he's trying not to focus on that. On any of it. He's trying to just be glad his mom seems to be taking his relationship so well, he just hadn't expected coming out to result in an insistence on her coming over for dinner.

So he's nervous and uncertain and everything needs to be perfect, which is why he's banished Jason and Billy from the kitchen.

Jason is cleaning. Zack can hear the vacuum running. He'd wanted to do that, too - wanted to do everything, really - but Jason had insisted. Said it was better if they each focus on one task. He and Billy had to help or Zack would burn himself out.

Again.

He had a tendency to do that.

So Zack is cooking, Jason is cleaning, and Billy is making sure anything explosive is dismantled and put away - none of the parents are ever to know exactly how they lost their security deposit. Everything is running smoothly. They are going to be ready when their guests arrive. Or they would. If Zack could just find the chopsticks.

He doesn't need them, his mom is fine with using flatware, but he wants them. He wants her to feel at home in his home. And he knows they're somewhere. They were in with the silverware but he kept losing them under the pile of wooden spoons and spatulas, so he moved them. He just can't remember where. So he's pulling out drawers at random, cursing under his breath, when the drawer nearest the door to the living room makes an odd click as he pulls on it and he remembers, entirely too late, that Billy was experimenting with something and he left in in the junk drawer.

That drawer.

All Jason and Billy hear is a weird sort of wooshing sound and then Zack stumbles out of the kitchen, his face covered in some pink powder.

"Oh," Billy says. "Oh that's going to need an alcohol based make-up remover." He turns on his heel like he's going to find anything like that in their bathroom, then turns back. "We don't have any."

"I guessed as much," Zack mutters, trying to scrub the pink off of his face. He can't even get it to transfer to his palms, though, so he knows it's futile but he's trying anyway. "Any idea where we can get some?"

"I'm calling Kim," Jason says, already on the phone, "if she doesn't have any, Trini might. And if worse comes to worse, my mom does."

"How exactly are we going to explain this to your mom?" Zack snaps.

"I said if worse comes to worse," is Jason's maddeningly calm reply.

"This is a disaster," Zack says, leaning back against the wall, face in his hands. He feels Billy pass him and slip into the kitchen, then back out again. "What?" he asks.

"The kitchen is fine, the chopsticks are in the can behind the knife rack," Billy says. "I'll clean up the junk drawer and set the table while you finish up cooking, Jason will get you as soon as the emergency make-up remover arrives."

Billy disappears into the kitchen again and Zack blows out a breath. He's angry and terrified, this was all supposed to be perfect and now he can't see a way to salvage it, but he appreciates Billy and Jason rushing to help. It's what he loves about them. They're all so different, he's sure anyone outside looking in thinks theirs is one of the stranger relationships ever, but they work so well together. The three of them. Jason on problem solving mode and Billy being practical both help to keep Zack calm when things go to shit or seem like they're going to shit.

And Zack needs to be calm. When he isn't calm, he just goes. He runs until he can't run anymore and then he's exhausted and alone and afraid and it's a long way back. Here, with them, he isn't alone and he can be afraid without running and it's nice.

So he gets dinner cooked, Trini and Kimberly get the pink off his face as best they can - there's a tinge Trini will absolutely never let him forget about once this dinner is over, but he thinks that's fair - and the gathering winds up being, surprisingly, not really all that awkward.

He's surrounded by his family and he's figuring out that's really all he needs.


End file.
